Jain Journal 1974 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 53

APRIL, 1974
191
animal life. Wherever they gain influence, there is an end of bloody sacrifices and of slaughtering and killing the larger animals.
The union of the laity with the order of ascetics has, naturally, exercised a powerful reaction on the former and its development, as well as on its teaching, and is followed by similar results in Jainism and Buddhism. Then, as regards the changes in the teaching, it is no doubt to be ascribed to the influence of the laity that the atheistic Jaina system, as well as the Buddhist, has been endowed with a cult. The ascetic, in his striving for Nirvāṇa, endeavours to suppress the natural desire of man to worship higher powers. In the worldly hearer, who does not strive after this goal exclusively, this could not succeed. Since the doctrine gave no other support, the religious feeling of the laity clung to the founder of it: Jina, and with him his mythical predecessors, became gods. Monuments and temples ornamented with their statues were built, especially at those places, where the prophets, according to legends, had reached their goal. To this is added a kind of worship, consisting of offerings of flowers and incense to Jina, of adoration by songs of praise in celebration of their entrance into Nirvāṇa, of which the Jaina makes a great festival by solemn processions and pilgrimages to the places where it has been attained.13 This influence of the laity has become, in course of time, of great importance to Indian art, and India is indebted to it for a number of its most beautiful architectural monuments, such as the splendid temples of Abu, Girnar and Satrunjaya in Gujarat. It has also brought about a change in the mind of the ascetics. In many of their hymns in honour of Jina, they appeal to him with as much fervour as the Brahman to his gods; and there are often expressions in them, contrary, to the original teaching, ascribing to Jina a creative power. Indeed to Jaina description of the six principal systems goes so far as to number Jainism as also Buddhism-among the theistic religions. 14
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number of rules directly from the law books of the Brahmana. The occupations forbidden to the Jaina laity are almost all those forbidden by the Brahmanic law to the Brahmans, who in time of need lives like a Vaisya. Hemacandra, Yogasastra III, 98-112 and Upasakadasa Sutra, pp. 29-30, may be compared with Manu, X, 83-89 ; XI, 64 and 65, and the parallel passages quoted in the synopsis to my translation (S.B.E., Vol. XXV). For the Jaina ritual, see Indian Antiquary Vol. XIII, pp. 191-196. The latter assertion is to be found in the Saddarsanasamuccaya, Vers. 45, 77-78. A creative activity is attributed to the Jinas even in the Kuhaon inscription which is dated 460-461 A.D. (Ind. Ant., Vol. X, p. 126). There they are called adikartr, the 'original creators'. The cause of the development of a worship among the Jainas was first rightly recognised by Jacobi, S.B.E., Vol. XXII, p. xxi. The Jaina worship differs in one important point from that of the Buddhists. It recognised no worship of relics.
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